American Association of University
Professors University of Delaware
Chapter

October 2005 AAUP Voice

Chapter Elections in November

Vote for Executive Council Officers

Elections for AAUP Executive Council officers will be held in
November. Ballots will be mailed to AAUP members on Nov. 7 and must be
returned to the AAUP office by Nov. 15. The results will be posted at
the AAUP’s new website and also announced in the Dec. newsletter.

With the balloting taking place from Nov. 7-15, the election
process will be completed by the week before Thanksgiving.

On pages 3 and 4 of this issue you will find a list of
candidates recommended by the Executive Council. Other AAUP members are
also free to run. To do so, an individual may either nominate
her/himself or be nominated by another member of the UD chapter. In
either case, such a nomination must be accompanied by the signatures of
at least ten AAUP members. Anyone interested in running should consult
the appropriate sections of the By-Laws. Nominations must be submitted
no later than Oct. 24, 2005.

Harassment at Barnes and Noble

Intellectual Space & Public Forums

The academic freedom and shared governance which are central
to our lives as teachers and scholars are part of a wider social, legal
and cultural fabric that supports intellectual discussion and debate.
Without these broader supports, the freedom to conduct research and to
teach creatively would become restricted and increasingly subject to
externally imposed, politically driven threats and limitations.
Consequently, it is incumbent on the academic community to express
concern when reasoned debate and discussion are curtailed in the wider
society.

A clear example of such a problem occurred in Delaware at the
Barnes and Noble bookstore in North Wilmington this past August.

The infringement on free discussion took place at a Barnes and
Noble-hosted book-signing for Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania who
was in town to drum up sales for his book, It Takes a Family.
Immediately prior to the event, when it was reported to
Santorum’s security team that two college students from Newark
and several high school students from Glen Mills, PA. were overheard
discussing their opposition to some of Santorum’s views, the team
concluded that the young people represented a security threat. The
team’s leader, Michael DiJiacomo, an off-duty Delaware State
Police Sgt. dressed in full uniform including a holstered pistol,
proceeded to inform the students that they had to leave the bookstore
and were additionally prohibited from reassembling in the adjacent
Concord Mall on the other side of the parking lot. When the students
indicated they weren’t sure their ejection was legal, DiJiacomo
threatened them with arrest and jail time. Although the incident ended
without any arrests, at least one of the young people was forced to
lean against a car with her back to DiJiacomo while being interrogated.

According to a Barnes and Noble spokesperson, the incident was
not the bookseller’s fault since the company ceded power over
security matters to Santorum’s people. But as Tom Neuberger, a
well-known lawyer, told The News Journal, the
“ceding” defense dodges the real issue: free expression in
a changing world.

According to Neuberger, one characteristic of post-9/11
America is the federal government’s increased tendency to limit
“people’s free speech rights at public venues” where
the president is scheduled to appear, a tendency, Neuberger contends,
that has been facilitated by the Secret Service’s use of local
police forces to identify and sometimes round up “anyone who
looks like they might be a protester.”

Now, Neuberger says, there is an effort afoot to broaden this
restrictive environment so that more politicians can benefit from free
speech curtailments. This, he suggests, is one of the implications of
the Barnes and Noble incident. Initially, it was just the president and
his cabinet who benefited, but now government ideologues, Neuberger
argues, “want to see if the U.S. senators can get away with
it.”

Mary Doria Russell, author of A Thread of Grace, a
recent novel about Jews escaping work camp executions at the end of
WWII in Italy, also found the Barnes and Noble incident troubling. As
she said in a public statement about the incident:

“When I began a 21-city book tour to support A
Thread of Grace, I was prepared to deal with Holocaust deniers and
anti-Semitic skinhead nutjobs who might show up at bookstores to harass
me. I figured I could do that without an armed guard, but evidently
Senator Rick Santorum isn’t as confident that he can handle folks
exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of
assembly . . . For his August 10, 2005 visit to the Barnes and Noble
Bookstore in Concord Mall, Santorum had Delaware State Police Sgt.
Michael DiJiacomo to protect him — not from skinheads,
anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers — but from teenage
girls.”

With the Concord Pike incident inciting so much controversy
nationally as well as locally, it is important to focus on an aspect of
the incident that is also significant but that has not been mentioned
yet: how what happened to the students relates to the impact of
bookstore conglomerates on free speech in general.

* Independent booksellers, with their track record of
supporting “outsider” authors and non-mainstream
publications, are currently responsible for only about 15 percent of
book sales nationally. This is the lowest percent ever recorded.

* From 1991-2003, membership in the American Booksellers
Association (the independent bookstore organization) dropped by 48.5
percent, representing a decline from 5,132 bookstores to 2,643.

* Of the $10.7 billion in bookstore sales in 2002, Barnes and
Noble’s and Borders’ sales accounted for $7.1 billion or
66.4 percent.

* The power of bookstores over what we read is exemplified by
the fact that publishers increasingly query giant book retailers and
the largest book clubs to find out if books being considered for
publication are of interest to these companies. A “no”
answer hinders the possibility of publication.

*The increased monopolization of book sales by the book retail
giants has its parallel in book publishing which is currently dominated
by five conglomerate publishers: Random House, Inc., Penguin Putnam
Inc., HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings, Time Warner,
Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Of the giant U.S. book retailers, Barnes and Noble is the
largest with 650 superstores in 49 states and the District of Columbia.
It also operates 200 mall stores under the name of B. Dalton, Doubleday
and Scribners, owns an online channel and engages in a variety of
publishing activities, including Sterling Publishing. In its
bookstores, Barnes and Noble hosted more than 100,000 community events
throughout the country last year, including ones like the Santorum
book-signing.

To some people, such facts may seem to indicate something
positive: the triumph of literacy. But as we have shown above, a close
look at the data shows how Barnes and Noble’s growth exemplifies
a trend of less diversity within the book-production and book-selling
industries. This trend raises legitimate concerns about the impact of
superstores on free speech and the public discussion of ideas.

Barnes and Noble Booksellers, Inc.

Coupled with Barnes and Noble’s megastore activities is
its expansion into higher education through Barnes and Noble College
Booksellers, Inc. which runs 500 campus bookstores nationwide,
including one at the University of Delaware. Although established as an
independent entity, Barnes and Noble College Booksellers has very close
ties with Barnes and Noble, as exemplified by the fact that the Barnes
and Noble CEO, Leonard Riggio, also owns a controlling interest in
Barnes and Noble College Booksellers, Inc.

Like the corporation that spawned it, the College Booksellers
company has been plagued by accusations of monopoly. One of the
criticisms made most often is that, by prioritizing the corporate
bottom line over student and faculty needs, Barnes and Noble’s
campus bookstores and their imitators have caused textbook prices to
soar. A July 2005 report from the Government Accounting Office has
added to this debate. The report announced that textbook prices
increased 186 percent (twice the inflation rate) over the last two
decades and that the average student now spends approximately $900
annually on textbooks and supplies. In Illinois, these figures prompted
some politicians to draft legislation that, if passed, will force
university bookstores in the state to make available lower-priced
“unbundled” textbooks that can be bought without
accompanying CD’s and workbooks.

From the rough handling of students at the Santorum
book-signing at the Barnes and Noble store in North Wilmington to
ever-mounting textbook costs, issues related to free speech and the
ongoing corporatization of higher education are spawned by the growth
of mega boo retailers like Barnes and Noble.

Our New Website

Faculty should check out the union’s revamped,
professionally designed website (www.udel.edu/aaup). It contains links
to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Bylaws, Faculty Handbook,
Newsletters, Executive Council minutes and other important documents.
Also, contact information is provided for all AAUP officers, as well as
for Steering Committee members, and departmental and committee
representatives.

Executive Council Candidate Recommendations

For President: Linda Bucher

I came to the university in 1990 to teach in the School of
Nursing. I currently hold a joint position with Christiana Hospital as
the Nursing Research Facilitator. I have been a member of the AAUP
since 1991 and have held the following positions: Steering Committee
member, At-Large member of the Executive Council, Vice-President of the
Exec. Council, President of the Executive Council, and Member of the
Bargaining Team (2003-2005 contract).

As president, I have worked to increase communication between
the Steering Committee, the Department representatives, and the
Executive Council. Executive Council meeting agendas are circulated to
the Steering Committee and minutes are currently available on the web
site. Most notably, the bylaws were revised to increase representation
across the colleges. The UD AAUP brochure has been redesigned and the
AAUP Student Award has been doubled.

The AAUP web site has been completely redesigned to provide
more information to our membership and easier access to the members of
the Executive Council and Steering Committee members. We have offered
an incentive to new faculty to join the AAUP (free local and national
dues for one year) and maintain the incentive (free local dues for one
year) for current faculty. We employ a part-time office manager to
further facilitate communication and chapter operations. We have also
filled the position of Grievance Officer to allow better separation
between contract questions and (potential) grievances.

I have been directly involved in three successful contract
negotiations (as Steering Committee member, Bargaining team member, and
President).

Should I be elected, my immediate plans for the chapter
include the continuation of efforts to increase communication among the
Steering Committee, Departmental Representatives and the membership,
and election of faculty to fill all open positions of the Steering
Committee.

For Treasurer: Sheldon D. Pollack

Sheldon D. Pollack is Professor of Law in the Department of
Accounting & MIS in the College of Business & Economics of the
University of Delaware, where he has taught since 1994, and is the
Director of the UD Legal Studies Program. Pollack was admitted to the
Pennsylvania bar in 1986. He has served on the union’s Steering
Committee, the Grievance Committee, the Collective Bargaining
Negotiating team, and is presently the Treasurer of the chapter. He
also serves on the Audit Committee of the National AAUP.

For Vice President: Danilo Yanich

Danilo Yanich is Associate Professor in the School of Urban
Affairs & Public Policy and the Center for Community Research &
Service. He is also the director of the Local Television News Media
Project. His research interests are (1) media, public policy and
democracy and (2) criminal justice policy. A two-time Presidential
Fellow at the Salzburg Seminar, he examined media and public policy
issues across various political and media systems.

He has published articles examining local television news
coverage of urban and suburban crime, juvenile and adult crime and the
death penalty. In addition, he has developed a website at:
www.localtvnews.org that contains over 10,600 digitized local
television news stories that are searchable and viewable in their
entirety. It is the only web site of its kind and it has been
recognized by the Library of Congress and added to the Moving Images
Collection.

He also serves on the University’s Institutional Review
Board and is chair of the Human Subjects Review Committee for the
School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy. He currently serves as the
Vice President of the chapter and he served as an at-large member of
the Executive Council.

For Secretary: Kevin Kerrane

Kevin Kerrane, Professor of English, teaches and publishes in
the areas of journalism, drama, and Irish literature. He has led nine
Study Abroad programs to England and Ireland, and was the founder of
UD’s Sunday international film series. In Spring 2005 he served
on the AAUP bargaining team that negotiated the current faculty
contract. He has been filling in as Secretary since the retirement of
the previous Secretary, Judy Van Name, in May, 2005.